1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to customizing the display of data on mobile computing devices. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems, methods, and computer program products for defining a layout for displaying data on a mobile computing device, customizing the display of data on a mobile computing device based on user selections, and efficiently displaying data on a mobile computing device in a manner that conserves power resources.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Users of mobile computing devices, such as cellular phones, pagers, and personal digital assistants (“PDAs”), now have access to large quantities of data. For example, a substantial portion of World Wide Web data is viewable on mobile computing devices. In addition, mobile computing devices may display proprietary content, such as stock quotes, sports scores, and headline news. Users may also use mobile computing devices to store personal data, such as appointments, calendars, contact lists, instant messages, and electronic mail messages.
While the display area available for displaying data on mobile computing devices is quite limited as compared to standard monitors, the display area still continues to increase. Thus, users of mobile computing devices have the ability to view data from a variety of different sources simultaneously. While simultaneously displaying more and more data is beneficial to users, there are problems inherent in current technology that may prevent users from efficiently viewing desired data.
Many mobile computing devices are configured with a single display format. Still, not all users wish to view the same data. For instance, one user may wish to view continuous stock quotes and headline news, while a second user wishes to view sports scores and messages notifying them of the receipt of electronic mail. Furthermore, even the same user may wish to view different data at different times, perhaps viewing stock quotes at work and sports scores at home.
One attempt to solve this problem allowed programmers to develop additional code to change which data is displayed on the mobile computing device. However, using this approach to customize the look of a display requires technical expertise not normally possessed by the average user. Thus, the average user cannot typically develop a layout nor easily change the visual appearance of a display to suit their tastes.
Also, as a user increases the number of data sources from which they are acquiring data for display, the efficiency of the data acquisition decreases. The processor and memory resources of a mobile computing device are usually substantially less than that of a personal computer. Displaying data generated by different applications may involve each data consuming application performing a query in order to obtain all the needed data. For instance, a user may query an Internet Service Provider for electronic mail and instant messages, a first proprietary network for news and a second proprietary network for stock quotes. Querying multiple data generating applications places a burden on the processor of a mobile computing device, which slows processor operations and thus display of data.
An additional problem results when data generating applications do not send notification of updates. When data generating applications do not send notification, data consuming applications have no way to know when an update has occurred. As a result, data consuming applications may often query data that has not changed. It may also be that a mobile computing device caches displayed data for some amount of time after it is displayed. Caching display data and querying data when it has not changed consumes memory resources and results in the needless execution of processor instructions, and results in unnecessary power consumption.
Finally, current display technology may redraw the complete area of a display even though only a portion of the displayed data is updated. Redrawing portions of the display that have not been updated increases the number of pixels that must be refreshed. This results in the execution of processor instructions needed to refresh the pixels, which consumes power resources.
Therefore, what are desired are systems, methods, and computer program products for efficiently displaying user customizable data on the display of a mobile computing device in a manner that conserves the processing and battery resources of the mobile computing device.